E-Scribe News : a programmer’s blog

About Me

PBX I'm Paul Bissex. I build web applications using open source software, especially Django. In the '90s I did graphic design for newspapers and magazines. Then I wrote technology commentary and reviews for Wired, Salon.com, Chicago Tribune, and lots of little places you've never heard of. Then I taught photographers how to create good websites. I co-wrote a book along the way. Now I am helping turn a giant media corporation into a digital enterprise. Feel free to email me.

Book

I'm co-author of "Python Web Development with Django", an excellent guide to my favorite web framework. Published by Addison-Wesley, it is available from Amazon and your favorite technical bookstore as well.

Colophon

Built using Django, served by Apache and mod_wsgi. The database is SQLite. The operating system is FreeBSD, on a VPS hosted at Johncompanies.com. Comment-spam protection by Akismet. Vintage topo imagery from the Maptech archive. The markup engine is Markdown.

Pile o'Tags

ajax apple blogs browsers business design django ebay fp fun google hardware haskell intellectual property iphone javascript linux media mercurial mobile open source os x oscon oscon2007 palm php programming python rails rants reading risks ruby site spam textmate the well tips tools unix vcs web development web frameworks webservers wmassdevs writing

Stuff I Use

Akismet, bitbucket, del.icio.us, Django, Emacs, FreeBSD, Git, jQuery, LaunchBar, Markdown, Mercurial, OS X, Postfix, Python, Review Board, S3, SQLite, TextMate, Ubuntu Linux

Spam Report

At least 184628 pieces of comment spam killed since January 2008, mostly via Akismet.

Make your own blog with Django in only 2.5 years

I launched this blog in July of 2005. It was powered by a homebrew PHP5 creation that as of today has, finally, thankfully, been laid to rest.

The other thing that started absorbing my attention in July 2005 was Django. Every month since then, I've thought, "You know, I should make some time this weekend to port my blog over to Django." I was using it for everything else, after all, side projects as well as web applications at work. The word "port" was the mistake there -- if I had said, "I should make some time this weekend to destroy my old blog and make a clean-slate Django version", I probably would have gotten it done about two years ago!

Anyway, it's live, and it feels good. Visible improvements are few; I used my random image template tag for the header graphics, and I am very happy to have bonafide RSS 2.01 and Atom feeds instead of the shaky homebrew RSS 0.91 of the old setup. There are many features I haven't finalized yet, such as tags and commenting. And there is more stuff I have planned, such as OpenID support. Going live now gives me motivation for getting the rest deployed.

Today ends a long blogging-drought for me as well. I've been busy, and in the coming weeks I'll be sharing more about the large and small projects that have been occupying me.

(Before anyone asks, I don't have plans to release the source. You really don't want it. If it evolves into something decent, I'll reconsider. But thankfully, today there are several Django blog packages to choose from, as well as good components you can use for building your own, and all of that stuff has the distinct advantage of not being based on something I cobbled together in 2005!)

Sunday, January 6th, 2008
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3 comments

Some related posts: Comment Spam Stats • dpaste.com update • dpaste.com • Pastebin update: Pygments • Moving the blog to Django
• Comment from Andreas , 1 week later

Congratulations to your django blog!

First: Happy New Year! (a bit late, but commenting wasn't available ;-)

You achieved the goal which I'm still looking forward. But first I hope I get the time to dig deeper in Python/django

Can you recommend python book(s)/resource(s) for a programmer with following experiences?:

C (advanced) C++ (avarage) Java (minor)

Cheers Andreas

• Comment from Paul , 1 week later

Hi Andreas, thanks for the nice note.

We have a section in the FAQ for the Django IRC channel that has some relevant links: http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/IrcFAQ#LearnPython2

As far as printed matter goes, a good comprehensive Python introduction for experienced programmers like yourself is Core Python. I also enjoy flipping through O'Reilly's Python Cookbook.

• Comment from Andreas , 1 week later

Thanks for your infos!

I'm curious where I will be after 2,5 years ;-)

Cheers Andreas

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